AGS Students Attend Talk by 2011 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate

On the 27th September, AGS students were invited to attend a talk by 2011 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Leymah Gbowee, which took place at the American Church in Paris.

Leymah Gbowee spoke about her experience as a peace activist in Africa and her native country Liberia during the second civil war (1999-2003). She recounted her non-violent struggle through peacebuilding initiatives allowing for the full participation of women. Ms. Gbowee emphasized the need for us as human beings “to talk to one another and not to talk at each other” and our duty “to step out of our individual spaces and do one kind act that will draw people together."

A former trauma healing specialist, Ms. Gbowee became one of the leaders of Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace in 2002, a women's peace movement which aided in bringing about the end of the second Liberian civil war in 2003 and brought to power fellow activist Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, making Liberia the first country with a woman president in the history of the African continent. Along with Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Yemeni Human Rights activist Tawakkol Karman, Ms. Gbowee was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011 for her "non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women's rights to full participation in peace-building work."

AGS students Stefan De Las and Mathew Wood, both candidates in the Master in International Relations and Diplomacy program at AGS in Paris, attended the talk. Stefan De Las says: "This kind of event makes me realize how lucky we, AGS students, are to have access to all that is happening in Paris as one of the world's capitals. We attended this talk two weeks after a lecture by Human Rights Watch France director Jean-Marie Fardeau and one week after a debate with German diplomat Ambassador Wilfried Bolewski, both professors at AGS... What better place than Paris to study International Relations?"